Experience Is the Product

I really enjoyed this article in Business Week:

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jun2007/id20070622_697183.htm

I especially appreciate the section that talks about how the Kodak camera became one of the first consumer technology products. Here at eBay we often discuss the fact that the auction format can be inherently difficult for users to understand -- especially first time users -- which makes the design so much harder to get right. Kodak had the same problem, and marketed the camera with the slogan “You press the button, we do the rest.” Here is a discussion about what happened next:

Take another look at that phrase—"You press the button, we do the rest." Eastman marketed the camera based on this promise of experience. But in order to achieve that result, Eastman couldn't just design a simpler product. That would only address the first half of the phrase.

On its own, a simple camera is meaningless, because the entire photographic process (loading a camera, exposing the light-sensitive material, removing that material, processing the material, printing images from that material) could not get any simpler. Eastman's genius was in designing his system so customers could do what mattered most to them—capturing the image ("You press the button"). Eastman located other functions elsewhere in the system ("We do the rest"), allowing the Kodak camera to be remarkably straightforward to use.

In order to meet his goals for delivering the desired experience, Eastman developed relationships with his customers that ensured they remained satisfied. He couldn't think of Kodak as a product, but as a service. This necessitated a factory unlike any seen before, one that could handle complex processing and printing capabilities. Investing in such an operation was an immense risk, but necessary if Eastman were to deliver on his promise to "Do the rest."

I think this points out an important design principle that is also true for web design -- enable the user to do what matters most to them, and hide everything they don't need to do in the back-end. Now, figuring out what should be shown and what shouldn't is a whole other story of course, and not easy. But it is a worthy goal. A couple of technology examples that get it right come to mind:

1. Putting a CD in your CD-ROM drive automatically pulls in meta-data about the album -- artist, album title, song titles, etc.
2. Intuit's TurboTax connects with your employer's payroll supplier to pull in your salary and other tax information -- reducing the possibility of user input error.
3. Amazon allows 1-click ordering -- automatically uses your default Credit Card and Address information to fulfill your order

Something to think about as you use the web every day -- what actions that sites ask you to do could be taken care of at the back-end without user input?

Facebook and MySpace: Comparing Visual Designs

Based on the controversy it stirred up, many of you have by now probably read "Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace", Danah Boyd's article about the class differences between Facebook and MySpace (she also posted a response to critiques here). I think it is a courageous article, but I'm not going to write about her views here. I want to comment on one particular section that sparked some thinking for me, and it's around the differences between the visual designs of Facebook and MySpace. Danah says the following in her essay:

Most teens who exclusively use Facebook are familiar with and have an opinion about MySpace. These teens are very aware of MySpace and they often have a negative opinion about it. They see it as gaudy, immature, and "so middle school." They prefer the "clean" look of Facebook, noting that it is more mature and that MySpace is "so lame." What hegemonic teens call gaudy can also be labeled as "glitzy" or "bling" or "fly" (or what my generation would call "phat") by subaltern teens. Terms like "bling" come out of hip-hop culture where showy, sparkly, brash visual displays are acceptable and valued. The look and feel of MySpace resonates far better with subaltern communities than it does with the upwardly mobile hegemonic teens. This is even clear in the blogosphere where people talk about how gauche MySpace is while commending Facebook on its aesthetics. I'm sure that a visual analyst would be able to explain how classed aesthetics are, but aesthetics are more than simply the "eye of the beholder" - they are culturally narrated and replicated. That "clean" or "modern" look of Facebook is akin to West Elm or Pottery Barn or any poshy Scandinavian design house (that I admit I'm drawn to) while the more flashy look of MySpace resembles the Las Vegas imagery that attracts millions every year. I suspect that lifestyles have aesthetic values and that these are being reproduced on MySpace and Facebook.

It's that last sentence that got me thinking -- the notion that lifestyles have aesthetic values and that these are reproduced in online identities and the way we use the Internet. I appreciate the sentiment, but I don't think that it paints the full picture. Could it just be that MySpace pages are ugly because users have such control over their pages that they can make it look however they want, and to be frank most people are pretty bad designers? If you look at the color schemes, layout and readability of most MySpace pages, it's pretty horrible, but I suspect it's just because users don't know any better. And the inconsistency everywhere you look is what makes it look so "messy". People's mental models are set up to look for patterns, and when they don't find it (like on MySpace) it leaves them with a pretty uneasy feeling, even if they're not sure what exactly it is that they're feeling...

Facebook, on the other hand, gives users almost no control over look and feel. You have immense control over the content on your page but you're pretty much stuck with what it looks like. There are even certain content containers that you can't move around on the page, which, in my opinion, is a good thing. It means that pages have a consistent visual design and users know what to expect and where to find information, which dramatically increases the ease of use.

When it comes to personalization, you can give users control over design and/or content. MySpace allows both, Facebook allows mostly content personalization. I think Facebook chose the better route...

Designing for the other 90%

I recently heard a great story on NPR about product designs that specifically fulfill user needs in developing countries:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11032381

Listen to the audio as well – it’s really great. Some excerpts from the story:

"Design for the Other 90%" features inventions created by social entrepreneurs that solve problems for those who lack adequate food, education, water and shelter.

The examples on display aren't conventionally pretty. Many cost just a couple of dollars to produce. Yet they could be life-changing for millions of poor people, says curator Cynthia Smith. For example, a simple ceramic pot nestled within a larger pot is a low-cost refrigeration system for fresh produce. Water poured into the sand around the smaller pot evaporates, taking the hot air with it.

And the LifeStraw, from a Danish firm, addresses a problem plaguing the world's poor. It's a personal mobile water-purification tool that turns any surface water into safe drinking water. The LifeStraw has been effective against waterborne diseases such as typhoid, cholera, dysentery and diarrhea. It is currently used in Ghana, Nigeria, Pakistan and Uganda.

Other inventions include prosthetic limbs that cost only $30, and charcoal made from sugarcane stalks that substitutes for wood and helps prevent deforestation.

The Science and Art of User Experience at Google

I recently came across this internal talk at Google about some of the UX elements of the site:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6459171443654125383

It's almost 30 minutes long and a pretty dry format, but I found it interesting nonetheless -- check it out if you have a chance. It's a good overview of Google's relentless focus on UX. What I found most encouraging was hearing that, like most companies, they don't always get it right the first time. When you see the final products you forget about the several failed iterations they went through, and the hours of design and usability testing that went into creating the final versions.

For example -- the simple "one box" home page wasn't a deliberate move by the company, it was mainly due to laziness -- the founders didn't know a whole lot of html and didn't want to learn. But the simplicity of the Google home page ended up being their most distinct feature and certainly one of the biggest reasons for the site's popularity.

They also speak about some of the things they just didn't plan for -- like how initial usability testing revealed users who never started interacting with the home page because they were "waiting for the site to load." It just didn't dawn on users that the simple home page in front of them is the whole site. The designers then added the copyright (c) Google message at the bottom of the page, mainly to show users that site has fully loaded and they can start typing...

Good to know that no matter how good you are at what you do, you can't always get it right the first time. And, of course, user involvement is essential in the iterative design of products...

User experience and the brand

Here is a nice article about the challenges a lot of designers faces when it comes to the brand attributes they have to adhere to:
http://www.uxmag.com/design/303/dont-let-branding-kill-your-brand

I fully agree that for online brands, the user experience is the brand. You can't separate the two from each other.

The way users feel about their experience is inseparable from the way they feel about your brand. This maxim holds true for brick-and-mortar experiences as well as for digital interactions. A restaurant with great food but incredibly long lines and a bad wait staff will experience brand damage. The user experience is bad, and people will look elsewhere. The same thing will happen if your users get baffled by confusing menus, hard-to-read text, and perplexing layouts. The user experience is bad, and people will look elsewhere.

The way a user feels when they come in contact with a brand interaction point will implicitly shape their image of the brand itself. This realization is a powerful tool for user experience professionals and can help snap clients and peers out of static thinking.

I also agree, and have seen first-hand, that the way to cross this divide is to bring the Marketing function closer to the design process. I want to take it a step further and say that one of the most effective ways to do this is by involving them in user research -- especially ethnographic research like in-home visits. Once you see a user struggle with your product, and realize that they blame the company for their bad experience, not the designers (and blame you pretty loudly and creatively in some cases...), it is a real, undeniable wake-up call. No-one sees our business in the siloed way we do. It's all one experience, so how we design it directly influences brand equity.